This section outlines the marketing plan for Translator Connect Services. The plan consists of four components: Target market analysis, promotional strategies, marketing communications, and sales and marketing channels. The section below briefly describes the services and attributes of the translation services business.

Translator Connect Service Offering.

Translator Connect Service provides translation services to business, government officials, and travelers who must transact business in foreign lands. Translation services are offered to clients in two ways: Live translators may be accessed via a toll-free phone number in order to provide direct translation during the business transaction. The estimated translation accuracy for this option is 75%. Customers may also access translation services by using a phone application that instantly converts in-put voice to digital text which can be read aloud to the native speaker. This second option requires that the business person requiring the translation a have a basic reading fluency of approximately eighth-grade by U.S. standards. Alternately, the translated text sent to the mobile device can be read directly by the individual for whom the translation is needed (i.e., the speaker of the foreign language). With this standard, a business person should be able to transact business in the foreign language with approximately 98% accuracy.

Pricing. The market rate for basic translations services will be determined following market research specifically designed to determine pricing points and conceivable discounts to distributors. These market research analyses will differentiate market pricing for the text-assisted translation services and for on-site translation services conducted via phone or Skype. A prospective break-even analysis will need to be conducted to facilitate construction of the pricing structure.

Value proposition. Translator Connect Services provides convenient, cost-effective translation services that meet the diverse needs of business people engaged in international business travel. By using Translator Connect Services, business travelers can achieve substantive savings for translations services. Repeat customers receive a discount, and business that establish an account that bills monthly will receive a 25% discount over independent session-by-session activity. Account holders may also select preferred translators, insuring a measure of control over both the translation quality and security of information for highly sensitive transactions, such as the run-up to an IPO offering or conversations with C-Suite level business executives. The value proposition excludes domestic translation services as the competitive market for this business is saturated. However, pending further market research, exception may be made for global business ventures that regularly enlist the services of translators in order to conduct their business both domestically (with foreign business associates regularly visiting domestically sited headquarters or operations) and internationally (in the convention that most closely meets the operations of Translator Connect Services).

Target Market Analysis.

The target market analysis will use a two-pronged approach to market segmentation. The first prong will use strategies based on psychographic data of consumers with regard to preferences, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles (Kurtz, 2009). The second prong is service-related and will focus on usage rates of similar services and the benefits consumers seek by using a service (Kurtz, 2009) such as that offered by Translation Services Connect.

Psychographic data. Consumers who are likely to be interested in purchasing the services of Translation Services Connect include three basic types of individuals: Pleasure travelers, business travelers, and government travelers.

1. Pleasure travelers visit foreign countries primarily for the enjoyment that travel brings them, but they do sometimes conduct a limited amount of business while traveling in foreign lands.

2. Business travelers have focused goals and objectives that cause them to travel to foreign countries, but they may also include some pleasure travel from time-to-time while on business excursions.

3. Government travelers also have focused goals and objectives that cause them to engage with people in foreign countries but, due to the sensitivity of travel-related expenses as perceived by the public they serve, government travelers experience very little-to-no pleasure travel experiences in conjunction with the travel in which they engage as employees of government organizations.

The following section examines the psychographic data related to each of the user-types listed above. Focus is on the preferences, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles of these user-types (Kurtz, 2009). This step will assist in the generation of target market user profiles.

1. Pleasure travelers may be uneasy about engaging the services of a translator while traveling in a foreign country. Since they don't speak the language, they have very little in the way of feedback that encourages trust. To select a company or an individual for translator services, they tend to rely heavily on the testimony of prior customers. In addition, they are most likely to want a translator who is like them in terms of gender, age, work experience, and levels of education and social status. Depending on their reasons for engaging a translator, the attitudes exhibited by pleasure travelers will tend to be influenced primarily by their social status, educational level, and travel experience. Interests vary widely with pleasure travelers. Many will look for translators who are knowledgeable in history, architecture, literature, art, and other cultural pursuits. If the translation services needed by the pleasure traveler are business-focused, they may look for translators experienced in law, accounting, or medicine. The range of lifestyles of international travelers is as vast as their categorical numbers. Many pleasure travelers maintain lifestyles that accommodate expensive hobbies, such as wine collection, golfing on resort or destination golf courses, or adventure travel that causes them to engage the services of local guides and suppliers of gear or transport. But the majority of pleasure travelers will be solely engaged by the travel experience and are primarily looking for ways to enrich their travel.

2. Business travelers prefer to transact business expediently and economically. They do not tolerate client-focused mistakes and stringently avoid circumstances with the potential for embarrassment due to poor or inadequate services having been commissioned. Business travelers will generally form their opinions of service providers based on how well the services help them meet their professional travel-related goals and objectives. They will frequently consult with other like-minded business travelers in their industry in order to obtain recommendations for translation service providers. Generally speaking, the attitudes expressed by business travelers will be in concert with their business travel goals and objectives, such that, these users will avoid expressing attitudes that undermine the achievement of their goals. On this basis, business travelers tend to be pleasant, though brisk and focused, customers. It is not unusual for business travelers to expect those they engage for support services to accommodate their schedules and timeframes. It is typical of business travelers to negotiate for the best rates for services; however, this negotiation function is often executed by other corporate employees whose jobs are dedicated to vendor relations and contract negotiations. Business travelers may have many interests both within and outside of their business roles. They may desire the services of translators for very different functions, engaging one translator for the actual business transaction, and another for associated leisure activities that will overlap their business trip. For instance, a solo business traveler who wishes to explore a number of golf courses during their trip may engage a translator who enjoys playing golf, and who, in essence, becomes a golfing companion as well as a translator. Another business traveler might engage a translator who is knowledgeable about contractual terms for a business transaction, but hire a different translator who is studying to be an architect to guide her during site-seeing expeditions in the city in which the business transaction was held. Business travelers tend to be fairly sophisticated and their tastes are often eclectic. These attributes will only be relevant to the translation services provider if the business traveler chooses to -- or is able to -- engage in leisure activities while on the business trip for which she has engaged translation services. That said, it is best to match business travelers with sophisticated, well-educated translators who themselves have had business experience.

3. Government travelers will expect translators to be discrete and to hold to non-disclosure agreements. All translators engaged by government travelers are accomplished through account-based relationships. In any event, when the business of a government official is at all sensitive or secret, translation services will be provided by government employees or contract employees who possess the appropriate level of security clearance, as dictated by the nature of the transaction. In all other cases, the expectations of government travelers will mirror those of business travelers who have no interest in overlapping leisure travel experiences with their business trip. The lifestyles of government travelers will rarely be a consideration when matching them to translators.

User profiles. The target market for Translator Connect Services is best analyzed by constructing user profiles (Kurtz, 2009), the generation of which is based on market research findings focused on user attributes and preferences, competitive and business intelligence reports. A number of formal data bases a commercially available that use activities, interests, and opinion statements…[continue]